London Bridge (French Literature) by Louis-Ferdinand Céline

London Bridge (French Literature) Reviews

• 
  Bro_Pair أعرف

  Folks, the only way to read Celine is to understand: you're reading a sleazy, sexy novelization of Looney Tunes. This guy is kinetic energy
• 
  Ted Prokash

  London Bridge is a continuation of what you got in Guignol's Band. I thought this one was better, or maybe after reading them both, they make more sense as a whole. I mean, it's really a buy the ticket take the ride situation . . . as in, 'this one scene with these two characters screaming and beating and pissing on one another has been going on for, what, 30 pages now?' But if you're a writer yourself, or just the type of reader who appreciates words being pounded into shapes never seen before, Céline is your man. You will come across lines in his work that will make you put the book down and find someone rant to, because you can't believe what you just read. He's like a strong drug; you fight through all the nauseating shit, because you know he has the power to put you on cloud nine.
  
  Despite a couple scenes that really require a tight grip and stamina, a great, loony-as hell story develops in this one. And by the end you start to feel a little for the characters. Empathy develops. Insight even. But don't cheat! Read Guignol's Band first and then London Bridge. It's worth it.
• 
  Keith [on semi hiatus]

  "Mocha is life!"
• 
  Descending Angel

  This is a hard one to rate. There really isn't anything to it. No story. No payoff. It's bitching and moaning without the sharp edge of journey to the end of the night. Sure it's amusing and weird in places but it drags alot, no way should it of been the best part of 500 pages.
• 
  Thomas Langtry

  Not so very long ago, in a galaxy not at all far away, life was very, very different.
• 
  Jim

  
  Louis Ferdinand Celine's
  London Bridge is, along with
  Guignol's Band, an extended interpolation into parts of
  Journey to the End of the Night -- specifically between the World War I scenes and the scenes set in Africa. Basically, the two volumes are about Ferdinand Bardamu's adventures in London during the latter part of World War I.
  
  One pretty much has tpo read Guignol's band first, because London Bridge is a continuation (in fact it's subtitled Guignol's Band II). Ferdinand has teamed up with Sosthene, working with a Colonel O'Collogham to create an effective (and stylish) gas mask. For the whole length of the book, Ferdinand pines for the Colonel's 14-year-old niece, Virginia, and in fact gets her pregnant. At this point, Sosthene, Bardamu, and Virginia escape, suspecting that the Colonel is about to sell them out to the police.
  
  They make their way to Prospero's pub, the Moor and Cheese, in Greenwich. They try to ship out to South America, for the ship wouldn't take Sosthene and Virginia. Suddenly, the last major set piece of the book is a strange party thrown by Prospero for Ferdinand.
• 
  Gavin

  3 stars is too low but 4 is too high, this was a delightful romp to follow, and I quite like the idea that London is a stand-in for hell. Céline’s style is equal parts zany and bloodthirsty as per usual, and this was a hilarious plot. I think what’s holding this back might be the translation, or all of the extended passages of “romance” that essentially amount to Lolita minus the charm or irony… that being said, this is a great read for fans of Céline and I’m always happy to see more of Ferdinand’s life and times.
• 
  Phillip Ramm

  Overwhelming. As is all of the Céline I have read.
  
  Short phrases... lots of idiom, clichés even, common as muck...and apostrophes!...so many!...What a long book!...but funny, weird, psychedelic, hallucinatory...almost biographical: Céline didn't get a head wound in the war other than severe tinnitus, whereas Ferdinand has been trepanned, but both author and character do have damage to their arm.
  
  Together with Guignol's Band, this book, subtitled Guignol's Band II - the title was changed by the first English language publisher - is the story of Ferdinand (the Bardamu from Death On The Installment Pkan and Journey To The End Of The Night) in London at the end of The Great War, once he had been discharged honorably from the the French army. Half of the truly weird stuff that happens in the books might be exaggerations and hallucinations due to that alleged headwound.
  
  Ferdinand and the Tibet obsessed mystic, Sousthene, team up with a Colonel O'Collogham to join a competiton to develop a gas mask for the British Army, but down from upstairs comes Victoria the Colonel's young niece...
  
  His instant infatuation and on-again off-again pursuit of the 14 year old Victoria is half Lolita, half Sweet Cheat Gone, and we know that Céline actually married a young "entertainer" from a bar, in England, and then left her there. The marriage was not registered at the French Embassy so he could disregard it as a French citizen, and he went off the Africa - see JTEOTN.
  
  The phantsmogorical gas mask which must be 90% metal given the banging and clattering, the pub visits that turn into fantastic orgies, the perpetual rain, and the tumultuous party scenes: what is real and what is Ferdinand's diseased imagination? He abuses everyone and everyone abuses him, to an absurd degree of consistency. People are seemingly bashed, stripped, mocked, and then they have a sing-a-long as a German bombing raid shatters the night. Towards the end, in a pause from the manic urgency of the previous 380 odd pages there are several much more quiet passages of lyrical description, particularly of the boats on the river and the workers on the waterfront which Ferdinand finds fascinating.
  
  For example: "The river quivering, crisscrossed, whipped up every which way... A hundred small open boats rush out, charge into the traffic... sculling... with a splash! splash! splash! pulling hard at the oars... streaming in from all corners...into the wakes... onto the stems... the sterns... slipping around the laggard stems... corks of foam... grazing past everything... arches... propellor blades... churning furiously... fervent halyards seized in flight... from one end to the other... bellying cargoes... overwhelming monsters... a small fry of pilot fish in the first light of day from crest to crest of foam nimbly scudding free... splashing up farther away... even more lively... spinning tops rcoing from wave to wave.. sending up sprays..."
  
  But Céline takes back to his reality straight away, with: "I've painted you a picture of the farandole [a French dance] on the lapping waves... But there's more to life than sights to see! We've got to hurry along..."
  
  And finally, on London Bridge they struggle against the wind, eventually get across, and the book ends. Plot? What plot? Who needs a plot?
  
  I am so pleased with myself for having finished... speaking of struggle!... but ultimately well worth it. My plan is get through the other six of his books I haven't read by the end of the year, using a biography/commentary by Merlin Thomas as a guide. I might die of exhaustion midway through that ambituous task!
• 
  Antiabecedarian

  another mystery. I never got this book... did I give it away so soon? I have to read it. I have to.
  *********
  I got another copy and started it for good measure. "Shit!"
  **********
  
  & then I read it.
  
  POW!
  
  I revelled more in Guignol's Band.... this obsessive blacking-out-hallucinatory fantasy is kind of emptied out when it comes down to it. Having fun with teh sick.... o great lit'rature, to make a kiddy comment like that is unthinkable... when it comes to serving justice... to any writer who automatically gets 5 stars for a title... yes, it does.
  
  But! I like to write! Ending.... superb phraseology... oh god! in the form of... those exclamations! shit!! Are you kidding? Read this trash! Go ahead!
• 
  Peter Weissman

  Celine lost control of his subject--and of his mind--in this one, which continues where Guignal's Band lets off. With much relief, I finally gave up on London Bridge after 150 pages.
• 
  Demetrios Dolios

  Roth was right Céline is freedom for writers